Sea Ice Community Challenge

[CrazyEyes]

Hey, the challenge is to "survive by any means possible" so I'd say that absolutely counts!  I'm a bit too invested in my current outpost to pack it all up and leave but I might try that on my next run.

[CrazyEyes]

At this point I've stopped logging every single cargo pod, wanderer and escape pod event that happens unless it leads to something interesting.  There are only so many ways to say "oh look, cargo pods of boomrat leather, that's useless to me but the slag will be helpful."  Plus, if I made up a story about how I tried and failed to rescue every damn crashlander or wanderer who shows up without any clothes and dies before I can drag them into the shelter (or is worthless to begin with and therefore left on the ice) this journal would be twice as long.

Just assume that there's a wanderer or escape pod every 1-2 days and cargo pods every 5-7 that you're not seeing.

Day 96

Has it really been that long since I updated this log?  I guess that's just an indication of how quiet things have been lately.  No matter how calm things get, though, it feels like we never quite manage to get ahead of all the work there is to do.  There are slag chunks still sitting on the ice that have been there for seasons and nobody has had the time to haul in, even though we need the steel.

Well today, something happened.  Seven or so pirates came to raid our outpost.  I guess they figured if we can survive out here we must have something worth taking.  Well, here's the priceless secret to our survival: wool parkas.  Might want to look into it for next time.  We got some new guns without having to do any fighting, so I can't really complain.

Our good mood didn't last, though, as someone somewhere else on this desolate world must have activated an ancient mechanoid structure.  Everyone here can feel it like an evil pulse in our heads.  I swear if I listen closesly enough I can hear voices.  I should stop listening.  Hope it ends soon.

Day 98

Red came into the outpost tonight being quieter than usual.  When I asked what was wrong, she said that her sister had crashed in an escape pod nearby but had died of exposure.  I tried to console her but she just said it didn't matter and went to bed.  I can tell it's upset her a great deal, though.  I'll retrieve the body and bury it for her.  It feels like the least I can do.

Day 99

A passing wanderer who goes by Cyber noticed our predicament and offered to give us a hand.  I'm not saying no to more help at this point.  I hope we're not taking him in just so he can be ripped apart by mechanoids or frozen to death by the elements.

Day 103

Some cargo pods crashed nearby containing chocolate!  God, I haven't tasted anything but human meat in so long.  This should help everyone keep it together.

Day 106

Everything has been so hard lately.  Everyone is fighting constantly, over the silliest things.  Even I'm having a hard time keeping it together sometimes.  I worry that if things don't start improving around here we're going to tear each other apart.

To make matters worse, a huge group of tribals has arrived to try and rob or kidnap us.  We're not in the best condition to defend ourselves from two dozen savages, but maybe the cold will do our work for us.  It's -115C outside and they seem to be massing just on the edge of our view to discuss tactics.  As expected, many of the do not survive the planning process and the survivors decide to retreat, leaving their friends unburied on the ice.

Day 109

I awoke this morning to a soothing feeling blanketed over my thoughts.  I don't like the idea of a foreign presence in my mind, but if it keeps us calm for a day or two I'll take what I can get.  Some cargo pods also landed nearby, carrying a small amount of silver.  I never thought I'd see the day when money just rained from the sky, heh.  Still, it's not very useful unless a trader shows up.  We haven't heard a peep from our comms console and we desperately need trade if we're going to survive out here.

Day 111

We've had cargo pods crash near us with all manner of things, but finally some arrived with the most valuable thing of all: steel!  We drop everything (I mean, not literally, ever scrap of equipment is precious) and get to hauling.  This will help us expand our power grid and hydroponics setup.

Day 117

Another wanderer named Norman has come by offering to help us.  He's not actually good at much of anything, but at this point another pair of hands to haul, clean, and hold a gun are a welcome addition.  I tell him to join, sigh, and head out to rescue him when I see that he's only wearing pants.  How do people dressed like that not die of exposure until they show up on our doorstep?  Nevertheless, we get him indoors before he freezes.

Another mechanoid ship part crashed nearby, but without the usual accompaniment of poisonous thoughts in our minds.  this one does seem to be leaking some sort of toxic fog, though.  That can't be good for our health, but at least it's spreaiding slowly.  With five of us we stand a much better shot at surviving whatever's inside that thing, too.

Day 118

Red died today.  She had been running around the stockpile shouting, and when Norman got close she picked a fight.  Norman defended himself, but... Red was already hurt, and somehow he must have hit her too hard or something, and... well, she didn't make it.  I'm going to miss her.  She had her faults, but she helped me survive when everything seemed to be at its worst and she didn't deserve to go out like that.  I think I'll bury her next to her sister.  She would have liked that.

Day 120

We've barely had a chance to mourn Red and already we got throwin into the meat grinder again.  A fugitive named Lilith asked us to defend her from pursuing pirates.  I agreed, because if there's anything I can do to lessen the horror doled out by this hated place I'm going to do it.  Well, she didn't mention she was fleeing in a drop pod, and that the pirates were right behind her.  They landed in the middle of our base, and several of us were badly injured.  We only barely managed to force a retreat before suffering a total defeat at their hands.

Lilith is very grateful, but tensions are still quite high.  She says she can't help with hauling or cleaning due to a "condition" (she won't go into detail) but would be happy to help with any crafting or artisan work we need done.  She's also a decent doctor, and showed up wearing a glitterworld tech powered helmet, which does nothing to insulate her from the cold but might be worth selling if a trade ship ever visits us.

Day 121

More cargo pods of steel!  this will help our efforts considerably.  Not much more to say, we're all focused on getting back on our feet after the last week.

Day 125

A trade ship arrived!  It was only a textiles trader, so we weren't able to buy any wood, steel or stone to expand our base with.  However, they were willing to take the mountains of raider clothes we've accumulated off our hands and our stockpiles are no longer in danger of overflowing.  They also sold us a great deal of muffalo wool, which will be of trememdous value once we can start making our own clothes.  The silver we got out of the deal we can spend on a bulk goods trader once one does arrive.

Unfortunately, right after this the constant brawling got out of hand again as Norman accidentally killed Lilith in a blind rage.  I wonder if we didn't make a mistake bringing him in.  If something good can happen - just one good thing - then I know we can all make it through this.  I just know it.

Day 129

We survived another mechanoid attack today.  I think they are smart enough to know that their servos will freeze up if the temperature gets low enough because they only seem to attack in the spring and summer.  regardless, we killed the two scythers by hunkering down behind our defenses and out-shooting them, then I killed a Centipede by kiting it with my sniper rifle while Hakuji, Norman and Cyber dealt with the other one by luring it into the base and surrounding it at close range.

Day 130

Hakuja came out of the hydroponics room today with her eyes red and grinning like an idiot.  She came up to me and handed me a smokeleaf joint.  I asked incredulously where she'd gotten her hands on it, and she said she grew it!  I was about to be mad, but she said we were able to grow so little food anyway that this would keep people in a better mood then two or three paltry rice meals.  She has a point, so I let it slide.  Mental note: expand food production as soon as possible.

Day 134

Today I caught Cyber and Hakuja kissing behind the hydroponics room.  Hakuja seemed embarassed but Cyber couldn't stop grinning.  I was in the middle of congratulating them when a conduit exploded right behind us.  I just about jumped out of my skin.  We got the fire beaten out but Cyber was burned pretty badly - we think his left lung might have collapsed.  Poor Hakuja.

...alright, I guess I should write this down too.  Norman has been hitting on me recently as well, but... well, he seems nice, but frankly he's a bit lazy, and I just can't see past the fact that he killed Red, self-defense or no.  Maybe in time... but maybe not.

Day 138

Another group of pirates showed up today.  Cyber spotted them first, and he ran back to tell the rest of us.  We manned our defensive line as they chanrged past the poison ship part (oh wow, I forgot about that... we'll have to deal with that next) and attacked.

Day 140

I woke up in the hospital.  One of the attackers had a shield and a sword, and managed to get close enough to slash me before we could bring him down.  I blacked out, and only vaugely remember being dragged into the hospital amidst a lot of shouting.

Hakuja was sitting beside me with a worried look in her eye.  I tried to shift my weight to get a better look at her, and that's when I felt it.  My left arm had something heavy at the end of it... and I couldn't feel my hand anymore.  Hakuja shifted uncomfotably as a I looked down.  My hand was gone.  In its place was an ugly hunk of metal bandaged to the end of the stump.  In a haze, I vaugely recognized the scyther blade I'd thought to salvage after the very first attack.

"It's all we had," Hakuja said simply.



I really felt for Engie when I saw that her hand was gone, though from a storywriting perspective it turned the scyther blade I mentioned waaaay back into a neat little Chekov's Gun.  The poor girl is already missing her right thumb and ring finger thanks to frostbite, and now she has a giant sword instead of a left hand.  She only has three fingers left.  It's gonna be hard for her to get any crafting done now, and she's going to be garbage at shooting and performing surgery. She just got a lot more fearsome in melee combat, though.  I do have EPOE installed - I wasn't going to touch it since it might make the later game too easy, but now I might have to in order to make Engie useful again.  Maybe a prosthesis trader will come along and we can blow all our silver on a shiny new bionic hand.

Also, things are getting INCREDIBLY difficult now that I have extra people.  Feeding them isn't the problem, although I'm probably breaking some sort of record for going the longest without getting a decent hydroponics setup going.  No, the problem is the constant extreme mental breaks everyone keeps going though.  I do my best to keep everyone happy, but as soon as someone goes berserk they're bound to start fighting another person.  The two end up hospitalized, and the pain from the injuries almost fully negates the catharsis buff.  While they're healing up they can't get any useful work done, and are that much more in danger of a lucky shot killing them.  I didn't kill Red and Lilith on purpose - they died because they had been beaten so badly over the course of so many berserk rages, either theirs or others', that a punch or two from someone was all it took to kill them.  The constant cycle of rage-fight-debuff-rage is absolutely tanking productivity to the point where it's hard to even ensure a steady supply of meals are being cooked.  And of course, if someone gets impatient and decides to eat some raw human meat from right next to the stove, that's another -15 stacked on top of everything else.

I am determined, though.  I can do this.  I will not stop until I have either launched Engie into outer space or the outpost is a smouldering ruin on the ice.

[Glaedr]

http://www.zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=17/03/klmn.jpg

I cried a lot...

[b0rsuk]

Are there any reasons whatsover to stay in a Sea Ice biome when you can just ragequit in A16 ? Are there any advantages over any other biome ? I get it there's challenge and bragging rights, but in A16 we can form caravans so there seems to be no rational in-game reason to stay.

[Thyme]

Well, there's this community challenge where people try to ... oh, wait.

I don't think there's an advantage in sea ice good enough to outweight the costs. Would be different if mechas would freeze to the floor. Currently doing a permafrost tundra to acclimatise for even colder stuff in the future, I do that for fun. Everybody can do easy.

[Sola]

Are there any reasons whatsover to stay in a Sea Ice biome when you can just ragequit in A16 ?

Temperature is used as a defense.  Thrumbos and human raids are both taken care of by nature.  Moving to a warmer climate negates this.
The floor reduces move speed to about 24%, between heavy snow and the natural ice ground.  This buys you a lot of time to get your affairs in order if you need to set your defenses up.

After you're past the hard parts (lacking a reliable source of food, energy), it's the most easily defended base.  Additionally, if you've already set it up, leaving causes problems with logistics and materials being left behind.

[b0rsuk]

So it's similar to ice sheet, just worse ? Does it have any advantage over ice sheet ?

[Zhentar]

Are there any reasons whatsover to stay in a Sea Ice biome when you can just ragequit in A16 ? Are there any advantages over any other biome ? I get it there's challenge and bragging rights, but in A16 we can form caravans so there seems to be no rational in-game reason to stay.

Advantage over similarly cold ice sheets, none at all that I can think of. You can't leave until you acquire a wool parka though, and it's a huge risk if you don't have at least a second colonist that can bandage wounds.

I don't think there's an advantage in sea ice good enough to outweight the costs. Would be different if mechas would freeze to the floor.

Mechanoids have a minimum temperature of -100C, Human factions -40C. After the 45 day minimum passes, whenever the outdoor temperature is between -40C and -100C, you're guaranteed mechanoid raids (except for refugees, I believe). Below -100C, the raid faction selection has to ignore the minimum temperature to be able to pick any faction at all, so you're back to mostly human raids in the fall & winter, which either quickly freeze to death (providing meat and leather) or wear wool parkas (providing wool parkas). So the absurd coldness provides a significant benefit after you acquire your first cold weather gear.

[Limdood]

I went back to my copied save file i made before i left on my sojourn to the ship.

REALLY irritating.  Got enough supplies to get a stove up, dealt with some bad moods for a while as i carved up all the bodies right before my packaged meals ran out.  -10-13 for cooked cannibalism is no problem at all without butchered bodies debuff...and i have nearly 2k human meat.

The really irritating part though, is that i built the communications array and orbital beacon on like day 3 or 4.  After 1 whole year, not a single trade ship of ANY kind.  So i give up.  I'll eventually get the resources to get things running without it, by taking apart comm and beacon and making a smelter to start getting hydroponics going, but its just annoying, my stockpile is huge and overflowing and USELESS, and I still can't get another colony member...the pods, wanderers, and refugees never survive to the base, and it gets boring watching engie research and dig graves.

[Thyme]

Ah, didn't know that. Was only at -50°C in winter so far, I guess that's not too far from break even.
Is it possible to have animals at such temperatures? Most of them wouldn't survive a solar flare, no?

[Sola]

Ah, didn't know that. Was only at -50°C in winter so far, I guess that's not too far from break even.
Is it possible to have animals at such temperatures? Most of them wouldn't survive a solar flare, no?

-50C is nothing. This challenge gets as low as -140C.  I know that Thrumbos are comfortable until.. uh... -80C, I think?  They almost survive in the summer in this challenge.  I don't have the stats for other furry animals on hand, so I'm not sure if they're capable of surviving outside of this challenge.  As for surviving a solar flare, you can simply restrict them to a small room and place a campfire.

[Zhentar]

Thrumbo are comfy down to -65. Muffalo are the next closest, at -60. It's probably possible to maintain animals once you're resource rich, but anything less hardy than muffalo will need campfires to survive flares, and even muffalo will for longer flares in the winter.

[Thyme]

While wood is import only and needs micro to set up. How far below/above comfy temperature can animals go without frostbite/heatstroke? I've never seen a health condition so far, even when 20°C off. Snowhares have -70°C btw.
I'm using a geysir to keep my greenhouse + boomrat warm (reduce heating cost), but you don't even have that in Sea Ice. Heating with an incendiary launcher/cocktails?

[CrazyEyes]

Throwing molotovs into a small stone room with a vent honestly sounds kind of brilliant. You don't even need to have anything to burn, the fires will sustain themselves for a while and you can pipe the heat into a couple of vital areas. You probably want two pawns drafted - one to throw bottles and one on the other side of the vent to put it out when it catches fire.

Maybe not the most practical heating system, but certainly interesting.

[Thyme]

Just throw them right in the barn, with zone setting to prevent animals catching fire or pawns putting them out. Chemfuel stockpiles could also work, but are not free and micro intense to get small stacks. Definitely not practical, but maybe sufficient to bypass flares.